Fujifilm is following its plan to expand the XF camera system with high-quality lenses. Recently, the wide-angle zoom XF 10-24 mm was added. This lens will please especially landscape and architectural photographers.The widest aperture f/4 (or f/6 in equivalent full frame format) is constant along the zoom range and adequate for typical applications of a wide-angle lens. The smallest aperture (f/22) will provide great depth-of-field without showing too much diffraction softness. The zoom ring has no marking for 16 mm (24 mm full-frame equivalent) but carries one for 20 mm (30 mm ffe), which is a little odd. Built quality is good and the lens feels solid. All rings operate smoothly without shaking. However, except for some parts (like the camera flange) this lens is mostly not made of metal. The provided lens hood is also plastic but feels sturdy and is nicely shaped.The front element and the filter thread do not rotate when zooming or focusing, which is important for a wide-angle lens that is often used together with a polarizer filter. Zooming and focusing are both performed mostly internally and so the lens never changes its size or shape (you can see some movement of the front element when zooming but the filter thread remains fixed).

Fuji drives a high technical complexity with the XF 10-24 mm. It carries 14 elements arranged in 10 groups, including 4 aspherical and 4 low-dispersion lenses. For comparison, Canon's flagship wide angle zoom, the 16-35 mm 1:2.8 L II USM, which covers virtually the same focal range as the XF 10-24 mm and is even faster by one stop, comes with 16 elements in 12 groups, of which only 3 are aspherical and 2 are low-dispersion lenses. The wider field-of-view of Fuji's 10 mm (15 mm ffe) compared to Canon's 16 mm is not a huge difference but noticeable.

This time I have waived the usual resolution measurements. Even my largest Din-A0 chart will be just a few inches away from the lens when shot full-frame at minimum focal length (10 mm), so no useful results can be expected.

Instead, I have packed the Fuji on a sturdy tripod and made a couple of ​​landscape shots. Subsequently, 100% crops from the center and from one corner will be shown of all focal lengths and all aperture settings. They are compared with Canon's EF 16-35 mm 1:2.8 L II USM and Fuji's wide-angle lenses XF14mmF2.8 R and XF23mmF1.4.

All shots were done with the self-timer to eliminate camera shake. The optical image stabilizer remained off. The ISO level of both cameras was set to 200. In each case, I let the autofocus of the Fuji X-E1 and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III do its job making sure the focus field was targeted at a high-contrast detail.